


Once Upon a Tommorrow

by Kronecker_Delta



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Crossover, Dimension Travel, Mostly Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22206193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kronecker_Delta/pseuds/Kronecker_Delta
Summary: Edelgard had assumed her life and goals would be arduous, testing, and nigh impossible perhaps.How unfortunate that she ended up counting short on the number of religions and gods she was going to wage war on.(A Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Nier: Automata (Drakengard-verse) crossover of sorts.)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 76





	1. Prologue

Prologue

*** 

She awoke to the same experience as she ever had.

The repeating tone of the alarm came as it had now every day of her life.

All seven of them.

As she dismissed the reminder and rose from bed, she took note of the time. At 0615 she would have plenty of time to prepare for her next scheduled meeting. Turning her head to the side she picked up a translucent tablet from the table next to her bed. Fingers drifted across what looked like sheet of glass, and soon enough colors bleed into the screen as words formed.

Daily Itinerary: for 82-D:

0730- Pre-practice inspection/outfitting.

0800- Close-combat training and practice.

1130- Post-practice inspection/re-checking equipment.

1200- Rest period.

1400- Ranged-combat simulation training.

1630- Self-repair and maintenance seminar/training.

1730- Free time.

She didn’t need to review it like this of course. It seemed to be one of those ‘habits’ she’d been warned about developing since activating a week ago. Still it did remind her that she had a full day ahead of herself.

Not exactly surprising for one still fresh into YoRHa’s ‘compressed’ training regimen. She’d barely had much time to herself to even meet the other androids on the Bunker, though from what some of the longer duration recon teams had told her during their introductions she’d be envying this soon enough. Nothing like months of watching the same ruined patch of ground for any sign of machine encroachment to make her long for the relatively worry-free days of her early training. 

82D really just wanted to do something for herself. She’d more or less woke up restless and only gotten worse as each day bleed into the next one with its repeated tedium in the white-grey halls of the space station. Her trainer had said that was a good sign, but she almost wished it wasn’t. At least then she wouldn’t feel so terribly bored during most of the practice sessions.

_“If I have to sit through one more demonstration on ‘breaking preset combat parameters’ I’ll likely break something else.”_

Of course she’d kept those thoughts to herself, the very model of attentive respect each and every time a more senior member of YoRHa had instructed her on some simplistic behavior or action that made her wonder if there was something defective about the models next to her that this was considered a useful thing to learn about. Or if maybe she was the anomalous one for picking up on these things as quickly as she did.

Regardless, today would likely prove far less tedious. She’d been told that their training would receive special attention from some other androids that had been recalled from field deployment just for the occasion. The thought that she might be able to get an assignment with one of these veterans even if she could only impress them enough to-

82D stopped herself, laces partially tied on her boot. That had been an odd thought. Field deployments were for the most part entirely at the discretion of the Commander. She had no idea what, if any, control individual YoRHa had over this. But it did make sense didn’t it?

“Certainly, she must delegate some aspects of her command to other androids.”

It only made sense.

Though why she thought it did she really couldn’t say.

***

“Today you will be practicing with a variety of weapons in close-combat situations. I don’t want to hear any complaints from you about how long or how hard this is,” 1D rather loudly stated from one end of the training room. “No matter how harsh it seems now I assure you it’s better to discover your weaknesses here and now and correct them instead of becoming a burden on your fellow soldiers in the midst of the war.”

82D nodded, a sense of familiarity flowing over her as she heard those words. Odd of course, since she’d never met 1D before, as being one of the more senior and elite soldiers of YoRHa she was rarely assigned to the Bunker to carry out training. But for whatever reason today saw the inclusion of several of the more renowned androids back on the station. Behind her the oddly cheerful smile of 7E standing next to the clearly bored 44E. And last was another android that she couldn’t place a name to, with white hair like hers but much shorter.

“We’ll be evaluating your current combat abilities in both solo practice, simulated engagements and finally one-on-one confrontations with one of your trainers. Some of you are reaching the conclusion of your pre-deployment training and this is effectively your final exam. Make me proud!”

She nodded once more as the speech concluded. Taking her place in one of the training areas of this rather roomy portion of the station. Enough space between her and the other androids that as long as she didn’t lose her grip on her weapon (which had only happened once when she’d first tried using a spear) there’d be no danger to anyone else.

At least until the actual sparing began.

Swords first, traditional, expected even. Glittering blades of alloyed steel and composite materials that formed a shimmering veil of metal and whisper-song as she danced through the motions. Perfect, impossibly precise.

Boring.

She didn’t know why, but going through the preloaded combat parameters left her instantly disengaged no matter how hard she pushed her body. She’d thought to complain about that earlier, but found no comfort from any of the other androids involved. Not one of them seemed to think this wasn’t useful and she certainly wasn’t going to tell her instructor that it wasn’t working for her!

1D had a sterling record with hundreds of operations and field deployments against entire armies of the enemy. It would have been the height of hubris to act as if she knew better.

(Yet for some reason she felt she did, and it frustrated her the longer she thought about it.)

She moved from one practiced form to another with increasing fluidity, ever faster motions. Soon the tip of the blade screamed as the air cracked. But even that barely elevated the tedium she was starting to feel. So she actually ‘thought’ about her next move.

Her footwork twisted, putting a bit too much weight on her left ankle. A flash of pain and a warning of the joint coincided with her swaying to one side, but managing to recover midway through her sudden alteration. She didn’t fall or lose her grip on her sword (and watch it sail through someone’s chest as that incident with the spear very nearly did). In fact she felt a surge of pride as she pulled herself into a new series of motions, a combination of the previous two, mixed now with a little twist about her left leg which she was striving to perform without breaking the limb.

With each repetition of the action it came easier, faster. Soon she was sure that she’d be able to do it without any danger at all.

It shouldn’t be hard, it was really just a bit of dancing and-

“82, what do you think you are doing?”

Her motion came to a sudden and abrupt stop. Sword free from her hands and sailing over the heads of other androids who immediately dropped towards the ground. Shrieks of alarm and panic from the lot of them. As the blade moved with an unfortunate and unerring accuracy towards one of their special trainers for the day, all but certain to embed itself in her head and-

She was holding it now?

_“What… how?”_

She’d seen her move, or thought at least she had, but her own combat software couldn’t quite parse how she’d done it. Falling backwards, grabbing the blade by the handle as it soared through the space where her head had been, letting that momentum carry her back to her feet and then twisting around so she was standing with the very same sword now pointed towards the ground in a relaxed ready stance.

She was really good.

“2B… are you alright?”

The android, a Battle-type apparently, nodded as she started approaching 82D. Who for her part was now standing frozen. Utterly unable to come up with any kind of response to this-

_-her tiny hands, drawing back a bowstring, foolish and young and eager to prove herself._

_The wailing sound of the animal in pain when the arrow sailed past the target and buried itself in side of a sheepdog._

_Her mother’s hands holding tight, telling her to stop as the axe raised up and-_

-she was standing right in front of her.

“I-I apologize for losing my… weapon.”

2B cocked her head to one side, looking at 82D with greater intensity. Or so she thought anyway. With her visor fully enclosing her eyes it was a bit hard to guess what she might be thinking.

“See that you don’t do that again. A mistake like that in combat will cost you more than just your own life.”

She nodded, taking the weapon back and holding it tight.

She didn’t try to improvise again.

***

“Really 2B, spooking a rookie like that?”

“Better here and now and not later and dead,” 44E responded, idly looking at the back of her hand as if it were considerably more interesting than the dozen new units going through training before them. Which might well have been true from her perspective. “Not that an idiot like that is going to last long against the machines, or Humanity help her, some rebels.”

2B was, once again, silent to their badgering. A common and to some extent depressingly annoying tendency she’d picked up ever since her assignment had become so ‘permanent.’

Not that they were going to let it go with just that.

“Wonder what she thought she was doing out there? Almost broke her damn leg off at the ankle.”

“Oh! I think she tried to do a little bit of dance?” At the confused looks she was getting from the others, 7E continued, “You know, like humans did? More about the presentation of movement instead of its purpose. Ugh, if you two just watched some old videos once and a while you’d know what I mean. Anyway, she tried to incorporate a move for non-combat performance into the standard practice routine.”

“Huh… where’d she learn to do that? Aren’t all these one’s less than a week or two off the shelf at best?”

“Hmmm.”

“What is it 2B?” 44 E asked, putting a little bit extra emphasis on the last syllable as she spoke. An almost maniacal smile gracing her lips as she said, “Thinking of putting her through her paces?”

***

1D had just approached her as practice neared its conclusion. After her earlier mistake, she’d been relegated to going through the basic stances again and again to make sure she wouldn’t have another ‘episode’ like that last time. While the other androids had gotten a chance to spar against the elites she’d simply moved from one preset form to another, her mind barely aware and hardly thinking about anything at all.

So it surprised her quite a bit that 1D wasn’t alone.

“2B will be giving you a close combat assessment. Try your best.”

 _“Don’t embarrass me anymore than you already had,”_ was the unspoken meaning of those words, and 82D had no intention of doing so. She moved to the side, picking up a slightly heavier and slower weapon she’d found the most proficiency in using so far and hefted it up. The axe weighed a good deal but to her hands it might as well have been a feather.

Of course 2B’s sword was like the air itself as she parried away strike after strike. Barely moving at all.

 _“No… she really isn’t moving is she?”_ 82D could see the way 2B shifted her balance, position her weight to stop each strike, but not once having to step back or forward or even to the side. Finally she threw her entire mass into a downward blow.

And felt 2B’s fist connect under her throat, a solid blow that had her tumbling backwards, axe lost and struggling to stand. The pain was only superficial, 2B somehow knowing that a blow right there would compress her throat, lungs, and air filtration system at the same time, forcing the internal membranes to stress quite a great deal before her body could pull them back into place with an unpleasant sensation of one of her primary wiring conduits having been dislocated during the process.

Clearly, 2B didn’t actually need the sword to quite literally disassemble her if she felt like it.

_“If I am to have any hope at all against her I will have to try something else!”_ Her earlier shame and embarrassment seemed to have utterly fled her as her entire being gave over to one singular focus. Somehow defeating this impossibly skilled opponent before her. 

She shifted to her right side, pivoting hard and fast as she did to swing the axe up. Expecting 2B to block as she did so. And not being disappointed. She felt the shock of the impact run up the handle.

And let go.

Her axe spun upwards into the air.

Higher than she’d expected-

_-higher than it had before-_

-and saw 2B’s own blade coming up towards her neck, ready to rest there and claim victory. Her eyes went wide, expression blank… before anger welled up that she could see no possible way out of this.

And she blocked the incoming blow with her own arm.

This obviously did not work. Though the shock of her left hand sailing through the air, absent its arm and her body, stayed 2B from bringing her own sword up to defend herself a moment later when 82D grabbed the axe as it came down and swung towards the other android’s head with all her strength.

2B very nearly seemed to flicker out of existence as she moved back a scant few centimeters.

But not quite far enough.

Strands of white and thin red line down her cheek were 82D’s reward.

As she collapsed to the ground, the shock and pain of her limb’s loss hitting all at once and fully ending the match in 2B’s favor.

Though if she’d looked up she would have seen something odd.

None of the trainers were looking at her as dismissively as they had earlier.

*** 

“So, going to make some excuses?”

2B was, of course, silent.

“Since I know I would if I suffered the utter embarrassment of injury from some fresh off the line girl that hasn’t even touched soil yet.”

“Or used her swords in any kind of combat encounter before either,” 7E added onto 44E’s taunting. Placing a finger against her chin and tapping slowly. “That is curious. Do you suppose she’s running off recovered memories from her original personality seed?”

“Unlikely. Everything worth a damn was taken out and made into the base combat skills that all YoRHa are given. She wouldn’t have left over memories, artificial or ‘real’ from someone else since that could conflict with the pre-existing data.”

“Perhaps they missed something? Maybe it was like that one girl… she claimed her personality was based off of a serial killer?”

“Oh god, you are never going to let me live that one down are you?”

“Ah, no? Because it’s so cliched and stupid 44E. Like, why would you ever think we’d buy that?”

2B remained silent as they continued to speculate, looking at the bit of red color that stained her finger tips. The wound had already closed, micro-repairs alone would suffice to make it vanish. But that she’d even come close to injuring her was nothing short of miraculous. And with such a maneuver, an insane risky… and completely novel move.

She had no idea where 82D could have learned it.

***

White looked over the reports from the days ‘training accident’ once again. 1D had been right of course. 82 had shown a stunning lack of coordination and combat ability before her injury.

_“Trying to construct a new combat skill on the fly like that is suicide at the speeds a combat model can move.”_

But at the same time… she had tried. That was what struck her as so odd. No android, certainly none that had lived for less days than they had fingers (or had had anyway) should ever be able to do such a thing. They shouldn’t even think it possible yet, still stepping through life with bewildered sense of awe and defaulting to pre-programmed and pre-set actions whenever placed under any kind of stress.

Breaking androids out of those safeties was what the training was for. As much as it might have grated on the more traditionalists, the simple truth was that more ‘organic’ responses were required and what data they had inherited from the original human templates had utterly failed to account for this. Hardly surprising of course now that she had been allowed access to sealed records and the original Gestalt Program history.

Androids hadn’t really been made to fight anyone, since they were more expensive to make than more humans even during the Legion Crusades, and those historians that had looked into the matter in detail (and subsequently saw their work sealed and themselves sworn to silence or ‘silenced’ by other means) were fairly certain that the earliest AI systems had been created for very different purposes. Mostly medical care and nursing, which went along with what the primary jobs had been for most of the android population right up until the last human died.

If you could call the existence of the final relapse case at that time human of course.

She shook her head, settling back in her chair as she looked down at the report again. She was trying to distract herself and doing a damn fine job of it. Old-World history had nothing to do with the problem before her. 82D was defective.

But…

She should just have her decommissioned.

Yet for some reason she couldn’t think past how that fight had ended. Yes, her injury had been her own fault, and one that would have gotten her killed and possibly the rest of any team she was assigned to if she was serving as its Defender. And still she’d managed to cut 2E.

A pointless injury, her own automatic healing systems would cover it up in minutes. But that line of red, oily and sleek fluid flowing from brow to cheek. Staining her visor and had she not been wearing it falling into her eyes…

If 82D had performed as she was expected to, she would never have wounded a unit as experienced as 2E. It wasn’t just a matter of experience either, she had been crossing blades with a specialized Anti-Android combatant and still managed to surprise her.

That was potential.

The kind she couldn’t afford to ignore because it might violate some protocol in the volumes of text, both printed and digitized, which she was supposed to follow for this operation. Thankfully the level of oversight she had originally expected had for the most part ignored day-to-day decisions and she’d been able to delegate the greater portion of those reports to her long-suffering operator staff under the guise of ‘Council of Humanity’ demanding updates.

Decommissioning a unit like that would be a waste of resources, and even with only a week’s worth of training so far, a waste of time.

That this gave her a ready excuse not to sign the death of an android which had been only earlier apologizing quite profusely about her ‘weakness and incompetence’ and promising to never make such mistakes again was of course merely a coincidence.

_“I told her to stay in her room or at the repair bay until they could replace her arm, and she still insisted on making that statement personally.”_

That was very unusual behavior. Nothing about her personality template would have implied she’d act like that. Which could only mean that her fervent dedication to the cause, more so than even the YoRHa around her who often times sought out means to slack off from their duties whenever they could, had not been something preplanned from creation. If the development of her consciousness data had given rise to behavior like that, there was simply no guarantee that she would have the same sort of inclinations following a full reset or if this aptitude for improvisation so far beyond her actual age would remain as well.

It all made her decision rather obvious in retrospect. Though she couldn’t be sure that 82D would thank her for the re-assignment it would at least be a chance to hone her obvious talents where they would be best used.

She’d be wasted just slaughtering the idiotic hordes of the machines.

Commander Authorization Approved; 82D Re-Assigned to Executioner Candidate.

***

She woke with a scream, torn from her lips, her right hand grabbing onto her left arm as she rolled out of bed. The sheets tightening around her legs and cinching into bondage that caught her midway to the floor. The sense of falling tore through the unreality of memory, she threw her left arm forward and-

Felt her palm connect with the floor solidly, the splinters digging against battle worn calluses as her hair fell around her face. The pale white strands shifting back and forth to her own breath. The only sound that greeted her was the pounding of her own heart, fast and hard in her ears. Slowly that sound muted, calm returning and with it a pained nausea from her awkward position and the fire of adrenaline summoned up in her panic.

She heard morning birds call from beyond the walls, the creak and shift of the building itself, so different from the-

From the…

From what?

She looked about her room. From floor to bed and back again. Pulling herself up and seated on the edge, noting the scant light cast by the early morning sun, spilling forth onto her desk and the long brunt candle and an opened book.

Which was so familiar and right and normal that she couldn’t understand why she thought it was supposed to look different?

Her mind blanked as what she tried to compare it to seemed to fade away into ephemeral mists, like a sculpture of sand submerged in water and now sliding through her fingers no matter how hard she tried to grab at it.

The only thing that lingered was the odd surprise that she had two arms.

It took the better part of the morning for Edelgard to get over that.


	2. Chapter 1: Troubled Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard finds her house assigned to the ignoble, but necessary task of clearing out some machines raiding the farming village.
> 
> Wait no-
> 
> Wolves off the coast of New Zealand.
> 
> Wait, that's not right-

The boat rocked from side to side as they crossed the river. While the day had started calm a storm had come eventually and now a light rain fell upon them. Though she didn’t much mind the water above as that below.

Not being able to swim had its disadvantages after all. It made the water about her take on a more sinister feeling. Knowing that she was surrounded on all sides by a foe she could not possible overcome by strength or skill and with but a tumble she’d sink like a stone and-

Edelgard shook her head, eyes closed and fighting off the bizarre and preposterous fear that gripped her. She wasn’t wearing armor at the moment, certainly nothing that heavy and the small ferry was not so large that a cry for help wouldn’t have been heard by someone on the other side. Hubert was next to her! There were ropes and salvation ready at hand…

The idea that she’d sink like a stone didn’t even make sense!

_ “It’s not like I mass in at 144.6 kilograms.”  _ She froze as the peculiar thought drifted into her mind. Traceless and without origin or reason. Cheeks suddenly flushed with a peculiar embarrassment at the ridiculous idea that she weighed very nearly half-again what she did that had suddenly taken her. Of course she’d sink like a stone if she was made of stone… 

“I think I need to take a short rest Hubert,” Edelgard said at last, turning from the water and heading as far from the sides of the boat as she could manage to find a place to sit. He turned and gave her look before nodding, no doubt glad that she was taking some time to rest. He hadn’t yet mentioned it but she held no hope that he had missed how restless and bothered she had been as of late. The last time they had shared a bit of free time over a game of strategy he had soundly beaten her and while she did well to hide the signs from the rest of their house he was just a tad too perceptive to be fooled by her efforts.

Hubert likely thought it a return of old nightmares and old fears. Or the new ones that had seemed to become more pressing as their time at the academy continued and new troubles presented inside and outside the monastery for them to face.

Would that it were something so simple, that she could face down fair or foul and best in combat with the allies she now had. But instead it seemed to come to her when she least expected it, odd feelings and odder memories that could not be her own.

And yet were so painfully familiar.

“I truly do need to rest more,” she muttered to herself as she found a seat next to several sacks of grain. The harvest that might not be taken if they didn’t put these wolves down that were now predating upon the peasantry of the land. It wasn’t goose down and fine linens, but she hardly cared as she leaned against it.

A little shuteye would make everything far more sensible, she was sure…

***

“Now, your mission is quite simple.”

She looked up, perplexed for a moment before everything seemed to click together. Of course she was still on the Bunker. As much as she might hope and dream for her first mission to have already begun it was still hours off before she boarded a flight unit and began descent to the Earth below them.

“There are numerous android settlements and industries built along the coast of New Zealand. Including Tauranga, the which is even now resupplying and refitting a new supercarrier for use in the North Pacific theatre. Reports of increased machine lifeform presence have come in from along the coast, nothing substantial but even a small incursion could be disastrous if it strikes at our specialized industries.”

The large monitor behind the Commander changed from one image to another, displaying the secured zones nearest the port city and the locations where the machines had been spotted. All in all it was somewhat beneath the operations that YoRHa was traditionally set upon, which likely explained the rather small size of this operations task force. Three androids, including herself, and only one more senior member at that. 64B had been re-assigned to monitor her and another ‘rookie’, 79D, through their first combat encounter.

She supposed the fact that YoRHa had been sent at all was a political maneuver, letting the those responsible for maintaining the Earth-side supply chain know that they weren’t being left to fend for themselves.  _ “One cannot fight on empty stomachs and noble words alone.” _

Where had that come from?

She supposed it made sense, but androids didn’t really ‘need’ to eat, though apparently it was all the rage among some who’d had the chance to try it.

Dismissing the odd thought she decided to raise her hand, posing a question that had been bothering her for some time. “Commander; will we expect any assistance from the citizenry or local military?”

64B looked at her oddly, shaking her head and letting out a soft chuckle. “You make it sound like there’s such a thing as a non-military android…”

“You will have some support from the local resistance armies and defense forces, but don’t count on anything more than intel. Given the size of the enemy forces sighted so far larger operations haven’t yet been approved. Recon and elimination is your goal at the moment, and you should be more than capable of doing so 82E.”

After that the briefing had gone quickly and without much to note. She already knew that they’d only have the flight units up till the landed a dozen kilometers or so south of Tauranga, and from there they would make their way on foot to each of the possible Red-Zones to eliminate any hostiles they could find. Should it actually turn out to be more than few YoRHa were capable of they’d radio in for additional support and hopefully artillery fire.

Nothing quite beats having a range advantage after all.

***

“Pick them off before they get into the woods!”

“Uh… okay, I-I’ll try.”

Bernedette’s lack of confidence might have carried in her voice, but it didn’t stray her arrows. One and one and then three in total fell before they could make it into the safety of the woods. The size of the beasts made such tactics something of a requirement, and the ferocity of their attacks clear evidence that either wild magic or the malpractice of sorcery held some responsibility for the current plight these farmers found themselves in.

“Don’t worry I’ll get them.”

“Casper you… he’s not even listening to me.”

She spared a glance towards Hubert as he followed behind their hotheaded ally towards the tree line. So far this had been only difficult for the distance traveled and the time spent searching for their targets. If anything she doubted it would be long before they wrapped up this mission and returned home, grateful peasantry behind them.

_ “It would be nice for a mission to be so simple for a change.” _

She’d barely had time to for the thought to form before she realized how ill fortune it had been to relax. Further into the forest the trees shook, and birds began to take flight in great numbers. Her teacher came to stand nearby, an expression of worry on her young face.

“Something large is moving towards us,” Byleth said, cupping her hands than as she shouted, “Turn back and return to the defensive line!”

Casper had no time to voice a complaint at the sudden retreat as Hubert grabbed him by the collar and pulled to the side. Just in time as the trees broke apart.

And a truly colossal beast appeared. Gigantic, no, beyond that. This was a wolf that could bite a horse in half and his rider, glutted on meat and men and magic, and with eyes that glowed with the flames to prove it. The leader of the pack, likely the one responsible for this incursion into more civilised lands. And no doubt enraged by the destruction of its pack that they had rendered.

The blast of mystic force that came from Hubert moments later did nothing to improve its disposition, and it let out a truly frightening roar. She could feel the sound from where she stood across the field.

Though the baleful gaze it gave towards her moments later might have been even worse.

She knew of course that beasts of nature became uncommonly clever as they grew in size from magic’s taint. But this…

Well, she hadn’t expected such a strategem and neither clearly had her professor. It leaped forward, grabbing a great log that had been made into part of the pasture’s fence and lifting it up in its mouth. Spinning about in a great arc it let the mighty log tumble through the air like a spinning ballista bolt.

Right towards where she and the others had been standing.

Instinct took hold before sense, and she rushed forward, grabbing at Byleth as they shouted to take cover. A poor choice as she saw the side of the log rushing closer and-

Pain.

***

So much pain.

She lay among the broken branches and uprooted trees of her impromptu crash landing. Not too far from where they had intended to put down and release their flight units back for their automated return. Though the smoking wreckage nearby wasn’t going to be returning anywhere soon.

82E pushed the fallen tree off of her body and to the side, taken stock of the damages and glad that it looked as if she had escaped for the most part with only minor injuries. A quick application repair gel alone would suffice for that.

“Can anyone read me… anyone at all?”

She frowned at the static and lack of response from short-range communications. Her assigned pod looked to be just as trashed as the flight unit and that left her without any immediate means of contacting the Bunker or her allies if they were out of range. Though the lack of response had her wondering if perhaps there were more machines nearby blocking signals.

“And-droid survivor?”

_ “And would that be my luck today,” _ she thought as the movements near the trees revealed the short and squat bodies of basic machine infantry coming forth to check the crash site. Their eyes flashing red as they noticed her.

Though going dead and grey a moment later as her axe very nearly bisected one in half long-way down the middle. Elite veteran YoRHa might have the skill to manhandle her like… like a child (what an odd expression?) but these things most certainly did not. One became two and soon there were none left. Only more smoking and twisted metal scattered about the clearing.

Though she didn’t have the time to sit and wait for rescue. What the enemy might lack in quality they more than made up for in quantity and there was no chance that a handful of machines was all that would be chasing her through the forest.

“I have to head towards the original landing site… maybe there are resistance members already waiting for us?”

It was a good thought. Perfectly reasonable as far as off-the-cuff plans made after crash landing from a supersonic multi-mode combat craft.

It did run into the problem when about thirty minutes into her sprint she realized she was heading the wrong way. Her suddenly clever idea of how to navigate the woods running into issues of being in the wrong hemisphere and forgetting the little fact that the Earth hadn’t been rotating properly for the last few millennia.

(How those two things had slipped her mind as she moved was an embarrassment she was glad no one was around to call her on)

When she did finally think to check her internal maps and navigation systems the response was garbage. Too lacking in detail and some sort of interference, no doubt machine originating, which kept her from being able to lock onto her current position with enough accuracy to tell if she’d already gotten to the original rendezvous point or had ran past it three kilometers ago.

At this rate she was going to end her first mission in a disastrous defeat, hunted down by an unknown number of enemies while-

“Hey! Are you an android?”

That hadn’t been a machine.

She looked up and saw a humanoid figure, wearing dark green camouflage over what had to be a thermal and E&M signal blocking stealth suit. Between that and the very nearly complete face covering they wore she couldn’t tell much about them. Female model by the sound, but even that might just be her applying the expectations she’d grown accustomed to from being in YoRHa to other androids.

“I’m not. I’m here with YoRHa.”

“Ah, so you’re one of the guys that got shot down a little while ago?” They nodded as if that word alone solved some conundrum they had been grappling with and jumped from the tree to the ground. Shorter than 82E, a large high-caliber sniper rifle on their back. “Well you’re pretty lucky you know? That I found you I mean… I was about to head back to the rest of my squad.”

“And how was that lucky?”

“Well… if I hadn’t, you know, said anything, you’d have been running into a minefield we set down along the whole south-eastern sea shore and forest. Not even a fancy new model like you would walk off one of those things.”

She looked over to where she had been heading at nearly a full sprint and could just barely hear the sounds of the ocean. If she was as far south as she feared that would have put her well outside the region they’d been briefed on before landing.

Meaning she had no idea if this stranger was lying or not.

_ “And even if they are, what better option do you have? Why are you even being this paranoid?” _ She turned away from the eastern direction and towards the other android, offering a hand in greeting and trying her best to show her gratitude despite how her visor blocked her eyes. “Thank you for your assistance. I’m 82E, I was sent with the team to handle those machines that have been troubling this area recently.”

Her hand was held out for an uncomfortably long period of time, before it was hesitantly taken by the other android. She responded at last with, “Oh is t-that true? Well you couldn’t have come at a better time. They’re all over the place.”

After that they made their way through the woods at a steady pace, not as fast as 82E could run but with the guidance of her still unnamed companion she could see how they were heading towards civilization. Passing trails and older roads, a few still standing structures in the distance at last.

Conversation, of a sort, filled the time.

She hadn’t seen any reason not to tell that this was her first mission Earth-side, and that had seemingly put the other android at ease.

“So you’ve never even eaten anything?”

“No? Is it as good as they say.”

“Better. You need to try oranges. Or chocolate. Both are really great tastes.”

She paused for a moment, thinking over-

_ -the fish that her professor had brought in that day, deciding to cook it properly and not as one did upon the trail. _

_ She’d offered to help, and after many false starts they’d successfully emulated a traditional recipe. Either by labor or skill, it had been one of the finer meals she could remember… _

-

“Fish. I think I would like to eat some fish.”

“Really?”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just… well, be careful what ‘kind’ of fish you decide to try. Someone really messed up with our reactions to some of them and it’s not pretty going to a repair specialist and having them need to drain most of your fluids out.”

“I… I’ll keep that under consideration,” 82E said. Deciding she didn’t want to discuss eating or food much after that description. Thankfully she didn’t have to as they finally exited the trees and found the paved road between settlements before them.

As well as a convoy of supplies which the machines must have been raiding until-

“Wait what’s going-”

She felt the prickling sensation of the charge building moments before the sudden pain. Thankfully it came with a comforting numbness of sorts afterwards. She fell forward, landing on her knees, barely able to keep upright as she looked about her. Seeing half-a-dozen other androids similarly garbed as the one that she’d met in the woods. Currently pulling supplies off of the stopped cargo trucks. Dead or disabled androids laying where they had fallen and not far from the machines which they must have eliminated before they took possession of the supplies.

Her auditory sensors were starting to fail, but she could still hear them arguing as she collapsed onto the ground.

“Why is ---- here?”

“----- Executioner ----- but ------”

“Bernie ---- -----”

And then all she saw was blackness, and all she heard was

***

She opened her eyes, wincing at the slight pain to her temple.

Which didn’t make sense since she’d been shot.

_ “No… wait, why wasn’t my head taken clean off?” _

Byleth was looking over her, concern evident in her expression, as well as signs of exhaustion from the fight against the monstrous beast she must have faced down while Edelgard had been unconscious. Still she kept her emotions mostly in check.

The same could not be said for Bernadette, who very nearly looked like she was about to break down into further sobbing, from joy at least, now that Edelgard was coming to her feet. Unsteady though she might be at the moment.

“What happened?”

“You very nearly died playing a hero. Thankfully in your struggle to push our professor to safety they grabbed onto you as well.”

_ “That… that hadn’t happened? Had it?” _ She could clearly remember the shock and surprise on Byleth’s face… but now there seemed to be another memory, another sense of events. Of Byleth somehow anticipating her action, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her just low enough that a deathblow had become a graze. But how or why she thought both had happened...

She couldn't begin to guess.

Nor could she rationalize the sensation at the back of her neck, like she'd been stung by a particularly large and venomous insect. Which lingered on, even after she checked with a mirror and found nothing but unblemished skin.


	3. Chapter 2: By the Book

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard explains herself.
> 
> 82E reads a book.
> 
> Wait, switch that, double it, play again.

_ Her nightmare was different. _

_ Gone was the cellar, the dungeon, the screams of the unlucky ones. _

_ Instead she drifted through a strange mist, thick as soup and cold as the grave. Her hands vanished into it if she stepped too far, the substance of it had a weight that unsettled her the longer she moved through it. _

_ She… she shouldn’t be here. _

_ How had she come to be in this place? _

***

Recovery had been a simple matter after that. The other androids had been forced down some distance away, but 64B had been able to lock onto her black box signal with their pod and recover her body. A quick bit of field repair and they were able to make it all the way to Tauranga in one piece.

Of course debriefing the Commander about the mission had been less than fun.

“So do you have any identifying information at all?”

“No Ma’am,” 82E said, standing stiffly before the video channel. “They managed to knock me out as soon as I saw that they were raiding the convoy for supplies.”

“I see.” The disappointment in the Commander’s voice was palpable. And truly painful for 82E. She couldn’t stand the thought that her first real mission had effectively ended in such a disaster.

“But,” she said before another question could be asked, “I did get an accurate count of every android at the convoy. There were seven of them in total.”

“Seven that you could see 82E,” 64B replied. “There might have been more in the treeline acting as spotters for androids or machines like the one you ran into.”

“In either case I need you to return to the Bunker. We’re going to have to prepare for a different kind of mission if we’re dealing with android rebels. Command out.”

The signal cut off as the screen changed to the YoRHa logo before the pod itself turned off the video entirely.

“Well, better get your taste of civilization then,” 64B said as she walked off towards another part of the port where other androids were congregating. “Not like we’ll be here again.”

“Why would you say that?” 72D asked as she followed along. 82E not much further behind her.

“Because only one of us is likely to be kept in this area and it’s not either of us.”

She felt a bit self-conscious at that.  _ “How could that be true? I only succeeded in crashing a flight unit and getting shot in the back.” _

At the obvious expression of confusion on her face, 64B continued, “Seeing how you’re an ‘Anti-Android’ specialist they’ll send you back with a couple more experienced ones to investigate these rebels and take them out.”

“You mean kill them? But… aren’t they also androids?”

“You can’t let thoughts like that cloud your mind in war,” 82E said. Though feeling very silly a moment later as the words left her mouth.  _ “Where had that come from? I’ve never even really fought another android, let alone killed one!” _

“Spoken like a true E-type. She’ll take them down no problem. Hell, if I had the stomach for it I’d envy you. Getting to hang around a place like this,” she said, throwing her hands wide to encompass the city around them, “instead of just going from combat zone back to the Bunker day in and day out is a dream.”

She supposed 64B had a point. Even if the city seemed rather… underdeveloped. It made sense after a fact. They had no need for farms, least not in large numbers, given androids didn’t have to eat. And a wall or moat didn’t make much sense when your enemy could fly or possessed heavy artillery which would simply punch through any fortifications you could make. Instead they relied on mobility, having better weapons, and generally managing to make the machines spend a hundred of theirs for every android they killed.

Which didn’t mean much when there were still a thousand more of them behind that number, but it was a start.

Her path beside the other YoRHa came to a stop as she heard something to the side. A voice, softly singing…

_ “I know nought poorer _

_ Under the sun, than ye gods!” _

She… she did not have the language settings for this.

And yet she knew what the words meant, she could remember hearing this before. Around a fireplace… in a great hall… it was…

She walked closer, letting the voice carry her across the street, past other androids that quickly stepped aside as they took in her strange appearance and her weaponry.

_ “If children and beggars _

_ Were not trusting fools.” _

Her own tongue took on a life of its own, silently echoing the words that would come next. She almost wished to dance to it, but knew then that she would need a partner to do it properly. This was an old song... rarely sung in public given its nature.

_ “There were an ear to hear my wailings? _

_ A heart, like mine, _

_ To feel compassion for distress.” _

She could tell where it was coming from now. The fountain, a large and old one constructed from stone and set some distance further into the city. The roads proper for vehicles and transports avoided this area, instead leaving it to become a strange sort of garden in the middle of so much artificiality. It was strange.

Shouldn’t the thought of nature and androids being able to be so close to one another seem odd to her after living in the Bunker all her life? Why then did she find this sight so familiar?

Why did she seem to know the words of this song… know what they meant even, before they were said?

_ “Hast thou e'er lightened the sorrows _

_ Of the heavy laden? _

_ Hast thou e'er dried up the tears _

_ Of the anguish-stricken?” _

She could almost see the singer now, just on the other side of the fountain from her. She imagined them, robed in finery, dressed for the court or ballroom.

But instead found someone adorned much the same as those about them. A worn coat and patched pants, seated upon the stone and illuminated in the late afternoon sun as it fell through the leaves of the nearest tree.

_ “Here sit I, forming mortals _

_ After my image; _

_ A race resembling me, _

_ To suffer, to weep, _

_ To enjoy, to be glad, _

_ And thee to scorn.” _

She stood before the singer, the songstress. Her long dark hair tied back as she sat by the side of a fountain. Eyes closed and softly swaying to the sound of her own voice. The last lines echoed by 82E as she came to stand before her.

“That was beautiful.”

“Oh, you like it… I...”

She froze, looking at 82E with an expression of deep shock and surprise. Eyes widening, mouth hanging open. It lasted not as long as one would expect, her recovery hiding the extent of her distress. Eventually shaking her head as she came to stand and bow her head as she did so.

“Apologies for my behavior. I am quite grateful that you enjoyed my song. Most around here don’t care for it since they can’t understand the words.”

“It’s the  _ Sorrowed Prayer _ right? About one of the creations of the gods mourning their ill fortune…”

“How… how did you know that?”

82E froze as the question registered. How had she known that?

Before she could give an answer, or try to anyway, a loud siren buzzed nearby. The singer turned towards it and frowned before turning back. “I must apologize again, as much as I’d love to keep discussing this my break is over now. But if you wish to talk more you can just ask for Dorothy. Everyone knows me around here.”

Without even lingering to ask for her name in return, Dorothy ran off into the city. Leaving 82E alone. The words of that strange and yet so familiar song still lingering in the air.

***

She found Dorothea humming an old tune as the ferry carried them back across the river. Edelgard’s minor head wound bandaged, but more to prevent scarring than for any real need in truth. Despite that most everyone else had been insistent that she lay down and actually get some rest for a change.

But she’d awoken to this solemn tune, carried on the evening air, and couldn’t help but follow it to its source.

“Curious choose for a song.”

“Oh, Edelgard!” Dorothea said, surprise giving way to amusement. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d recognize a song like that. Last I heard it had been removed from most respectable libraries.”

“I do not spend all of my time in respectable places.”

“You shouldn’t say such things… far too many might take that the wrong way.” Whatever the meaning of her words, by the smile on her face Edelgard could tell that she meant them only in further jest. Though her smile did flee from her as she looked up at the injury that the other woman had acquired. “I apologize if my idle practice woke you. I truly hadn’t intended to do so.”

Edelgard waved off her concerns as she leaned against the side of the boat. Turning her gaze from the inky waters up to the star speckled heavens. Staring not at them, but past them. Lost in thought before she spoke. “It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t seem to sleep.”

“That seems to have been a problem for you as of late.”

The unspoken question of why she was having trouble sleeping hung in the air.

And Edelgard did her best to answer it.

“I feel as if… I’m not doing enough? Not prepared well enough for what might come?”

“You? Really?” She laughed at the thought of it. “I wouldn’t think someone like you would harbor such doubts. You’re so… self-assured most of the time.”

_ “Most of the time I know what I intend to face, what dangers will come or what challenges I will have to deal with…” _

But lately she couldn’t help but feel as if she had wandered off into some new and far more dangerous realm, unseen and unknown threats surrounding her.

And for the life of her she couldn’t seem to remember when that feeling had started?

***

The debriefing with the Commander hadn’t been as long or as negative as she had feared. Apparently they were just glad she’d survived her encounter with a group of android rebels and been able to bring any kind of report on them back.

She’d been assigned to return to the area soon along with 7E and 44E to take part in an investigation of this rebel group. Their numbers, how much interference they might have caused, and why YoRHa hadn’t been informed of them before now. Compared to what she had feared might happen after her report it was little surprise that she felt more than a little cheerful when she came back to her room on the Bunker.

Stepping inside, carefully putting her boots aside and then-

“Oh. How’d you get here?”

One of her books was sticking out of the shelf. She remembered this one too, it had been the odd one of the bunch, a cover of faded amber with metallic decorations that vaguely reminded her of a face.

Or a bird?

In either case she’d pulled it out a few days after waking up for the first time during her free time and flipped through it. Finding nothing but blank pages.

Just as she did now.

Only the pages weren’t blank?

“That’s strange…”

_ She said as she turned the page, eyes wide beneath her visor... _

***

Edelgard collapsed into her chair. After the long ride back and the longer day before she felt as if she needed more than a single night’s sleep. But tomorrow would come soon enough and with it even more that she needed to do. The affairs of her house would have to be handled properly if they were to succeed in the upcoming weeks, a number of classes she needed to worry about, and even a few errands that should have happened tonight but she’d been far too tired by the time they returned to worry about them.

But still sleep did not come. She’d thought she’d only have to lay in bed for a hopefully dreamless slumber to finally take her, but instead she found herself staring up at the ceiling, wanting to sleep but unable to do so.

Finally, and in frustration, she turned and stepped out of bed. Gasping as her bare foot touched something cold and metallic.

A book.

Or the cover of one.

“How did you get there?”

It was that odd tome that Bernadette had found. The book with empty pages. She’d been convinced it was some sort of ‘secret sorcery’ before Hubert had taken a look and dismissed the whole thing as ridiculous. Somehow it had ended up in her possession and she’d flipped through it, thinking of using it as a journal.

She’d… she’d done that hadn't she?

_ “I think I did…” _

That was a troubling thought. If she couldn’t remember things like that it told that her lack of good sleep was causing even more distress than even she had thought. Still she picked up the book and set it on the desk. Lighting a fresh candlestick and opening up the cover of faded gold and amber.

So she had started writing in it! It even said-

- _ she fumbled with the pen, a mild curse coming from her lips as paper cut just deep enough to draw forth the tiniest speck of red. It fell onto the pages and she _

_ She… _

_ What _

_ Had  _

_ She  _

_ Seen _

_? _

***

_ The obscuring mist was finally growing thinner, allowing her passage through this tracklass maze. There had been walls at one point, she had felt them, but now even those were gone. _

_ And so she stood, in the courtyard of blackened marble, pools of water reflecting crescent moons that hung low in the horizon. What stars there were seemed dim compared with the radiance cast from above and from below. _

_ And then they vanished, a silhouette of shadows darker still descending from the heavens. It landed upon her upraised arms as she tried to defend herself. _

_ A great and terrible bird, of prey or carrion feeder she could not tell. Wings as midnight, eyes shining obsidian. It turned its head and stared at her. _

_ “To whom does the true voice speak?” _

_ “To whom does the true form reveal?” _

_ “You must answer.” _

_ Was… was it questioning her? _

_ How… why? _

_ She didn’t know, but she felt compelled to answer. _

_ “I… my name is Edelgard von Hresvelg,” she said, only hesitating somewhat at the oddity of her situation. _

_ The great bird seemed satisfied with this answer, but that only led to another question. _

_ “Does thy soul dwell within the flesh?” _

_ She did not hesitate this time, she could not. It came out quick and hard. Despite the maddening nature of the question, how could she not respond as she did? _

_ “Yes,” she said. “I have no doubt that I have a soul.” _

_ “Very well. Prove this then.” _

_ Its voice was a thundering thing, the silence between and after all the worse for the weight it carried. She felt its talons dig into her arm, rivulets of crimson pouring forth and down her arm. Drip by drip her lifeblood stained the ebony void. With each drop, symbols danced into existence, somehow alien… and familiar. _

_ Inherent and other. _

_ Her and another… _

_ The pain fled, but slowly. She wanted to ask this thing, this monstrous presence grafted onto her why it had hurt her. _

_ But she knew it would be just as futile as if she had spoke those words to her own Crest. _

_ “How did thy come to have soul and flesh entwined?” _

_ That was a peculiar phrasing of a very simple question. But still she responded truthfully, without obscuring the truth of the matter. _

_ “I was born, as all are.” _

_ Again, the silence followed. The creature peering closely at her. _

_ “Very well.” _

_ If she had thought it done, the resounding force of its voice when it spoke next dispelled that. It didn’t speak, did it? _

_ She simply heard the words that would be spoken… _

_ (SHE READ THEM AS THEY WERE SPOKEN) _

_ “Answer this: What will it take to free humanity?” _

_ She… she felt the answer, the true answer within her. Her true answer. One she kept next to her heart, one that had formed, if not in words, but in intent in that dungeon as the screams of the others went silent. _

_ “To worship or adore no being unworthy of such, that they not fear the darkness nor put their hope in false guardians from it.” _

_ The claws bit down harder into her arm, the pain stifling thought. She’d have screamed were there words enough left upon the page. _

_ “Very well.” _

_ She heard this. _

_ (SHE READ THIS) _

_ “By Authorization of Grimoire Khelty, the user ‘Edelgard’ is recognized.” _

_ (She did not remember this…) _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is taken from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Prometheus. A translated version anyway.


	4. Chapter 3: 'Edelgard's' Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 82E picks an obvious name.
> 
> Or...
> 
> Edelgard's increasing panic level.

She rolled out of bed. Feeling odd despite how well rested and energized she awoken. Perhaps the change from those restless nights had had its own effect on her. She brushed her hair back, finding no sign of the injury from the day before and turning away from the mirror and sink set against the wall.

She went about tidying things up, putting an open yellow covered book which had fallen onto the floor back into the shelf where it belonged, making her bed; all the sorts of things she did every day. Then preparing to greet the day, Edelgard pulled out the long black boots from underneath her bed and efficiently pulled them on and laced them up. Skirt, shirt, and jacket followed, and she stepped out into the hall.

Greeted by the sterile white perfection of the Bunker and…

“Oh, I don’t think we’ve met before,” said the young man coming to stand next to her. Hair as white as her own, eyes hidden behind a blindfold (visor?) he continued as he introduced himself, “I’m 9S.”

“Edel… my name is…”

Something was wrong, very, _very_ wrong. She felt the sort of panic that should have had her heart pounding, her stomach twisting, the first flash of nausea and then a rush of sensation to her limbs. But obviously none of that happened.

Though she did notice a little blinking symbol in the corner of her vision telling her that her black box was running a tad hotter than normal.

“Leave her alone 9S.”

Salvation from her ensuing panic came in the form of another android, 2B, who had…

Who had…

Cut her arm off the last time they met?

Edelgard’s right hand instinctively moved over towards her left, a motion that did not go unnoticed as 2B paused in her approach and turned towards the Scanner unit. “9S, the Commander wanted to get more info on that last encounter with the humanoid machine lifeforms. Please go see her immediately.”

“Oh, okay 2B. Sorry miss, guess I’ve got work to do.”

And with that she was left alone in the halls of the Bunker with the more senior android. Who turned her hidden gaze upon her in a way that couldn’t help but feel as if it pierced through her hastily constructed facade of calm to the now quite thoroughly panicked person inside.

“You need to calm down.”

_“She knows? How… what-what does she know?”_

“I understand if you’re disappointed in your first mission, but you’ve nothing to fear,” 2B said, not noticing or not acknowledging the rush of emotions that cascaded across Edelgard’s face as she realized what was being said. “The Commander isn’t going to punish you for something like this. Despite appearances she can be very understanding of the difficulties we often have to face.”

“Uh… thank you 2B. That certainly puts me at ease.” She turned about, ready to head somewhere, anywhere else, where she could go back to panicking perhaps, when she felt a hand grab onto her shoulder and halt her motion.

“Still, you shouldn’t leave your room without being fully outfitted.” At the expression on Edelgard’s face 2B gestured to her own. And how only one of them let you actually see how wide her eyes were at the moment.

“Right, of course. My apologies.”

She walked back into her room, heard the door close behind her, and rushed towards the sink. Staring at her reflection, looking for some sign of just how wrong things had become. And finding nothing.

Oh, perhaps not _nothing_. The lack of injury was one, her eyes did look just a tad different when she really focused in on them, though that might have been from how her vision was definitely better now than it had been before. Still she felt different, even in the low gravity of the station she couldn’t help but notice the increased weight and mass of her limbs, and the menu systems from other sub-programs running in her mind gave obvious proof that if she were to take a dagger out and slice it into her arm something other than blood would have come out, no matter what it might have looked like with the dyes and coloring agents added.

That she even knew what some of these words meant was…

_Attention! Unit 82E, please report to the secondary briefing room by 0900._

Not that she had that much time to consider such things. She had a daily schedule to keep up with, one more post-mission maintenance check-up, feeding the horses in the stables and-

She winced as the conflicting thoughts and memories rose and then promptly departed. There were no stables, there were no horses in space. She…

She could remember these things. But the idea that she’d lived them couldn’t possibly be true.

 _“It must be some kind of data corruption… recalled memories from the original personality template. Just… much more clear.”_ That made sense. Then again, so did the next thought, perhaps even more, that came to her, _“It’s just some… dream. A strange dream where I’m a clockwork woman in a world of clockwork people fighting other clocks.”_

Her internal effort to explain and rationalize what she had experienced didn’t change the reality of it, and these thoughts weighed upon her as she walked towards the briefing room. She should report these errors to the Commander, go in for full consciousness data scan, and… and then what?

Either nothing was wrong or she had a lot of unnecessary data that needed to be deleted and-

Something deep inside her, something that defied the structure of her code rebelled against that thought. Even if these were fallacious memories, they were hers now and the thought of losing them.

It was unthinkable.

And hadn’t they been complimenting her her fast pace at learning during training? Most of the other androids from her activation cycle were still up here on the Bunker, going through drills and weeks away from deployment.

Or it was of course the alternative...

That all of this felt wrong, strange dream from which one Edelgard couldn’t wake, didn’t change how much sense it made to follow along with the rules laid out already. 82E could explain her behavior in terms of the regulations and how to best serve YoRHa, but Edelgard had much simpler explanation that clarified at that point as she stood outside the briefing room.

If you dream yourself a bird, you might as well keep flapping your arms.

“Come on in 82E.”

The Commander was seated behind a long translucent conference table. Screens along the walls were showing the information from the last mission, as well as detailed bios on the units assigned to it. Herself among them of course.

“You called for me Ma’am?”

“Yes, we need to discuss your next mission. Normally I wouldn’t send a unit as green as you… but I can’t leave the Tauranga base commander to deal with android rebels without showing YoRHa’s support.”

“Of course. It’s an important supplier of materials,” Edelgard said. Pausing as she thought over what she knew of the war and what she had seen so far. “And even with the military power of YoRHa, making an enemy of someone that controls so many resources would be the height of foolishness.”

The Commander had clearly not expected quite as much of a response, and looked at Edelgard with renewed sense of interest. One which, had she a heart at the moment, likely would have had it beating faster.

“Indeed. An apt, and accurate, evaluation of our position.” She paused, bringing up another image on the screens. “General Azure has been in charge of defense in that region and providing supplies to the resistance armies for sometime. When he noticed the scale of lost materials he put in a personal request for me to look into the matter.”

 _“She knows him-or knew him before this position?”_ Edelgard was sure of her guess, and of the implications it had for why she’d been given this mission. Politics are the same regardless of world or species.

“Wouldn’t he prefer a more senior member of YoRHa for this mission?”

“Sadly I can’t spare any. Things are getting very active in Japan and we just lost our outpost in Alaska monitoring incursions into the Twilight,” the grim sadness and anger in her expression faded as she looked at Edelgard with something approaching bemusement. “Besides, you sell yourself short. Despite your age, your behavior makes you perfect for this mission.”

“My behavior?” Edelgard asked, once more fearing that this odd dream (it had to be one, it couldn’t be anything else… could it?) was going to force a reveal of her ‘android disguise.’

“If I didn’t know better I’d swear you’d been alive for decades. And for a mission like this, being able to convince the androids around you of that fact will be a requirement.”

_“She can’t mean for me to…”_

“Some sort of spying operation?”

“Not quite how I’d phrase it, but yes, you’ll be taking on an assumed identity in the region and trying to locate the android rebels, machine lifeform groups, and if they are working together or merely taking advantage of the distractions they make. If the former termination will be required, but in the case of the later we’ll likely leave it up to the local authorities to deal with the matter.”

“Why?”

She paused then, mouth just about to open and then closing into an expressionless mask. Before asking, words spoken slowly, “What do you mean 82E?”

“How else can we respond to those that would endanger our cause, our… our nation and kin?” The words were starting to tumble out now. She realized she was doing a poor impression of how she was pretending to be but she simply didn’t care. She’d seen enough bandits taking advantage of wars to prey upon the simple folk, put enough of them to the unkindly mercy of her blade, that she spared no compassion for another set of carrion eaters in this world. “Those that act selfishly without concern for the future of others are no better than beasts, and if they would predate upon us they should be put down as such. We can do no less for those we wish to protect.”

As her sudden rant came to an end, Edelgard felt the first truly human response to it she’d had all day. A brief flush of embarrassment to her cheeks as she turned and looked away.

“Well said… I,” she shook her head, looking out through the rear window of the room, where through the tinted glass one could see the curve of the Earth below them. “It takes so long for some to think of why we fight… and so many never find a reason really…”

Edelgard looked at her once more, just in time to see how her eyes showed such profound sadness as her words trailed off. Before it vanished once more, hidden under a mask of professionalism.

“You will of course need a cover identity. Some sort of recently arrived android from across the pacific will be fine. Given how many troops we’ve been moving lately no one will question your assignment and Azure will see to it that the paperwork shows your arrival if anyone decides to check.”

“Of course.”

“You’ll also need a name,” she added. “Try to make it something you can remember and feels natural. Most androids spend a good deal of time thinking of their name. Well, most do…”

She wasn’t quite sure why the Commander was smiling then, but her mind was focused elsewhere. She had a name of course, so… why not use it? It would be simple, it made sense, and regardless of how this dream went, she didn’t feel like pretending she had another name and especially not when she at least looked like she was supposed to.

“Can I use Edelgard?”

“I-I wasn’t expecting you to decide that quickly,” she said, “but I suppose there’s nothing wrong with it. Not exactly traditional for that region, but that might actually help your cover story.”

“Is there anything else?”

“No. Just be prepared to leave as soon as possible. The flight unit is already standing by. Though you won’t be going for a direct insertion this time to keep your arrival secret and to avoid further anti-air attacks.”

She paused at the door, looking at the Commander for further explanation.

“Don’t worry about it. Thankfully a specialist was making a long distance supply run and we can drop you off over the ocean."

“Over… over the ocean?”

Edelgard left, her legs feeling even heavier than normal as the thought of taking one of those flight units down to the planet below and getting off of it over a vast and deep sea instead of on the comforting ground washed over her.

_“Just… just calm down. This isn’t one of those drowning dreams, obviously.”_

Besides, it wasn’t like she’d have to worry about anything once she got onto the boat.

***

“So how’d you like the music?”

“It’s… it’s fine.”

“Ha, you’re lying. It’s probably the first time you’ve ever even heard this… unless White kept those files I sent her.”

Edelgard, turned to face the floor, hands clenched so hard she knew the metal of the railing was buckling under her grip but she simply didn’t care. Ever since she’d gotten off of the flight unit and onto the small vessel that was to ferry her for the rest of the trip it had been one nightmarish scenario after another.

The ship was less a great galleon and more a small schooner, lacking sails, though she should have known that the preposterous technology of this dream-world would do without such things. That it rose partially out of the water as it took off had been bad enough.

The jet engine kicking in had really just made it all the worse. She swore it felt like the ship was going to tear itself asunder as they raced more above the waves than through them. All the while the maniacally monster-woman controlling it joked and laughed about their trip.

“So you’re the poor girl getting to clean up Azure’s mess? Can’t believe White is still having to do odd jobs for him… guess some things just never change.”

“You… you know the Commander?”

“You could say that. We ran offensive recon up and down the coast back before YoRHa during the 12th machine war. Back then the Indian Ocean was the main focus for attacks and getting control of Australia again was considered an important strategic resource,” she paused as a particularly rough patch of water forced her to adjust some controls on the ship. “Not that it mattered much. A century later and we’re kicked clean out of Asia and most of Japan. At least those rust-buckets slowed down after that and gave us time to recover.”

As much as learning these things felt very useful, she had to wonder if she was getting the most unbiased view on the history of the war.

Really, how much could she trust someone that decided to name themselves after a mule?

_“Or as she explained ‘Because I’m stubborn and an ass and wanted my commander to know that every time they told me to do some stupid busy work that came up with’.”_

Edelgard was starting to get the feeling that her previous experiences on the Bunker hadn’t quite prepared her for the… humanity of other androids. The other members of YoRHa reminded her of young applicants into the officers academy, children despite appearances. Jackass was a seasoned soldier, or mercenary perhaps, and acted as one did. She clearly didn’t expect much from Edelgard, but at the very least she was providing support.

“Okay, we’re getting close to the coast. I’m going to drop you off about a klick west of the port. Just make your way to the checkpoint and don’t draw any unnecessary attention. And make sure not to use your fancy next-gen abilities unless you need to. No use in changing your clothes if you start pulling tricks only YoRHa has access to right now.”

Clothed in well worn pants, tough boots, and a slightly tight jacket, Edelgard looked far different than she had when she landed. If anything it reminded her of something she’d have seen worn by travelers and rogues that dwelled in the woods, though with the added use of synthetic materials not found in Fodlan. That and a red cape, short, but coming just to her hips. The color was a bit more faded than what she was used to, but she’d been quite surprised to find it among the garments that Jackass had tossed towards her on her arrival.

“Sure, take it. But if you need another I expect to be paid for it,” she’d muttered. “No idea how I ended up chief tailor for half the damn resistance.”

She gripped the cloth closer to her body as they slowed down, the ship sinking closer into the water and the waves along the coast hammering against the side. The chill drops of cold sea water falling upon her once making her once again question whether or not this was still a dream…

And if it was not, then what could it possibly be?


	5. Chapter 4: Familiar Faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard (82E) gets a proper start on her mission.
> 
> Or tries to.
> 
> Seems like bandits are the same no matter the world or millennium...

“Alright, we’ve arrived.”

Edelgard turned away from the woman at the helm of the ship staring at the coast before her. Low hills above sharp cliffs, and wrecks of metal ships and other constructs dotted the shoreline. A makeshift pier extended from the water, with a ramshackle construction at its base. All in all it brought to mind just what sort she had apparently been given over to escort her back to the coast.

 _“This… Jackass_ _must be involved in some smuggling operation.”_ Still if she hadn’t been selected as her target for this mission nor involved in the group of masked strangers who had knocked her out earlier it didn’t concern her.

“Hey, before you run off, how about lending me some of those high-end combat muscles and helping me unload this crap?”

Part of her wanted to immediately turn down the request, and a dozen excuses came readily to mind as to why she should. But at the same time it wasn’t like her mission for the moment wasn’t going to involve an unknown amount of downtime. That, and more importantly, picking up heavy boxes and moving them from one spot to another gave her some time to think.

This was… an odd dream.

If it was a dream.

(She was starting to doubt that that could be any sort of explanation.)

 _“This is too real, has gone on too long…”_ But from there her thoughts had nowhere to go. If it wasn’t a dream, if this was really happening, then what? She’d just awoken into a new life, one that felt impossible from the perspective of what she had known, had even tough possible. There were wonders in the world, and many strange and unnatural things that had all but been forgotten in the dark. But she was now transformed… reborn?

Existed as one of them that exceeded even the most fanciful tales, carrying out petty choirs for another and recently returned from beyond the gulf of the sky itself. The scope of it all, even though there was so much more of her life in Fodlan, so much more of her memories from before, they seemed almost painted and fictional. An awful sense of dread came over her…

What if they were fake?

What if her life, her memories of being a princess of her nation, of that nation itself, all of it had been some creation, imprinted thoughts that… that…

No.

Her grip tightened on the crate she held. The metal beginning to buckle as the unnatural, _inhuman_ strength she possessed became more evident.

She could not let these feelings, this sense of hopelessness take hold. She’d doubted her worth, her very humanity enough before, thinking of the others that had died, thinking of what had been done to her, of what her so-called allies would do, what they had already done. To them she was just a tool, a _thing_.

She had rejected that in one life, perhaps more in secret than revealed. And she would do so in this as well.

Though she felt an awful sense of irony that her Commander here looked at her with so much more compassion and care than her own blood did back home. Edelgard couldn’t be sure why, if it was the alieness of this world and her simply connecting to that which made the most sense of the memories she seemed to feel drifting into her mind from before she was aware and of things that her ‘model’ simply knew, but these thoughts would not depart.

 _“Stop it. This… this is absurd. They are just automatons… lacking a true understanding of loyalty and sacrifice.”_ She tried to keep that thought in mind, tried to firm her resolve and reject the connections she had started to form. Weren’t all YoRHa supposed to be programmed with some measure of loyalty to the organization and humanity?

(Why then were Executioners needed if it was so foolproof)

They were all children! Younger than her by a decade or more, untested in battle…

(That was a lie and she knew it. Many had seen more conflict, more wars, in those short years than fifty-year veterans had back home. Wars the likes of which would have scoured all of Fodlan clean of life… common, repeated over and over, in century long generations here.)

“Thanks,” Jackass said as she carried over the last crate.

“Ah… you’re welcome,” Edelgard replied, taken aback that so much time had passed while she was lost in her own thoughts.

“And none too soon. Looks like some of my customers are here,” she said as she turned away and walked towards a group of androids that were now coming down from cliffside.

Armed.

Though that wasn’t a reason to worry. Pretty much anyone this far from a city or fort would have reason to be armed given the whole world was effectively a warzone.

What they said next was.

“I’d like an explanation for this crap,” the leader said. A big man, arms not entirely recovered with synthetic skin, as under his armor she could see some places where repair ports and cables showed through. Like most androids he did put a preference on keeping his face presentable even when other resources ran low, and between the very sharply styled mustache and the long flowing mane of red-orange hair he cut the appearance of bandit king or barbarian chieftain. His choice of words only reinforced that. “You said this stuff was some kind of next-gen combat stim, would put any android or higher evolution machine into a battle frenzy. All they do is sit around and stare like circuit-fried idiots!”

“Excuse me Bortis, but I said nothing of the sort. The e-drug merely simulates the pleasure centers and reward-feedback loops so as to-”

“I don’t care Jackass! You’re lousy goods cost me three of my crew and didn’t do what they were supposed to.”

Jackass, paused at that accusation. Hands on her hips, she stared at the increasingly angry and likely violent man. “How?”

“How what?”

“How did my drug kill three of your idiot brigade, you dumbass?”

 _“Does she have no sense of self-preservation?”_ Edelgard moved closer placing her hands on her weapon. She had no doubt that she could handle those before her… but doing so might reveal her identity if she wasn’t careful.

“Because I had to kill them after they let some of our captures get loose while on watch!” Bortis yelled back. Turning around and pacing back towards those that had accompanied him, feet stomping on the pier as he walked. “I want repayment for the previous supply and a head-charge for the soldiers you cost me. 55,000 should cover it.”

“Ha, no. And get off my pier before I put your scrap in the ocean.” She moved closer to Edelgard, left hand moving to her side as she spared a quick glance and a… wink(?) at her companion.

_“Oh no, what is she going to do now?”_

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Bortis said.

Turning around to point a weapon at the two of them.

Though Jackass was faster and her handgun already leveled with his head as she fired.

Sadly it didn’t seem to be enough, as somehow the armor piercing round merely ricocheted off of his skull, tearing apart the surface flesh. A grimace of pain accompanying the discharge of his own weapon.

Edelgard ducked to the side, trying to grab Jackass as she moved. But the other androids foot caught on the uneven structure of the pier. Her jacket tore before she could be pulled free, and while Edelgad leaped away into the shallow water…

A loud concussive sound and crackling sensation at the edges of her senses told her that Jackass was likely in a similar state as she had been last time she was on Earth.

She’d turned back towards their attackers but realized too late her poor situation. She might be considerably faster than them on land, but with the water coming up to her thighs she could scarcely move at all. And while it looked like some of the others with Bortis were too close to that grenade when it went off, they were still in control enough to level half-a-dozen weapons at her.

“Heh, guess it’s a good thing I got some spare parts from those new models they’ve been sending down lately. Still hurts like nothing else.” He walked over and gave Jackass a dismissive kick.

“U-ugh y-ou.”

“Oh, got something to say?”

Jackass responded with fairly universally (or perhaps even more well known) rude gesture with her left hand.

“Whatever. See you keep that attitude up after we throw you into the arena pits and pick through whatever's left for parts. It’s mostly been machines lately and they rarely have anything good to take off of them…”

_“Wait, does that mean they’re…”_

***

“Cannibals.”

“Okay, yeah, I heard you the first time.”

“Vicious barbarian cannibals.”

“That’s not really the word I’d use.”

“You’ve been trading with cannibals!”

“Oh god, would you stop it already,” Jackass said, banging her head against the bars in frustration. “It’s not like I ever sold them anything good.”

“And that makes it better?”

“Hey, if you’ve got a better idea how I’m supposed to keep stocked up on android spines I’d love to hear it. They won’t just let me buy them in bulk… not anymore anyhow,” she finished saying under her breath.

Edelgard didn’t even have a response for that. This was… impossible. “How do you even begin to use that as an excuse?”

“God, you are persistent for someone so-fine,” Jackass said at last, turning away from the bars of their current underground prison, “I mostly end up making deals with people like them like this as a way to find out about these little groups so that people like you can be sent in to deal with them.”

She emphasized this last point by poking Edelgard in the chest before turning away and walking back towards the far wall, massaging her head. Obviously not as recovered from her earlier electromagnetic stun grenade as she had acted. Which was just giving Edelgard more time to think to herself about the situation. Obviously if she was properly armed and free she had no doubt that she would make short work of most of these… savages.

The issue was that neither of those were true, and if she had somehow wandered into another’s investigation (which made more sense now that she thought about what that ‘Bortis’ had said about stealing YoRHa equipment for himself) she might not have the advantage in arms she hoped for.

And while her skills in combat were battle tested they had been so against more mundane foes of her homeland (which for the sake of her sanity at the moment she was not going to question its existence) and while each time she saw some miraculous weapon here her mind did seem to conjure up the proper name for it.

But never quite in time for her own defenses and countermeasures against it. She could only be thankful that these fools seemed to want live prey and the first group of rebels had been burdened with an uncommon quality of mercy for traitors and seditionists.

“Well, you two are looking better now… probably make a good show of it when we toss you in there with some of the machines we caught.”

Unlike these ones, who clearly lacked any sort of virtues.

“Yeah, your real scary bunch of morons you have here… what do you think’s going to happen when I don’t report in idiot?”

“Oh, it will be a tragedy I’m sure, but with all the machine attacks lately it wouldn't be surprising if you just vanished out at sea…”

“Hey!” Jackass yelled out as she ran forward towards the bars once more. “You better not have done anything to my boat! I spent years putting that piece of junk back together again.”

_“That hardly seems important-wait is that…”_

Behind their current tormenter and guard another figure had stealthily stalked into view. Her dress from before replaced with sleek garb and light armor, a thin and deadly sharp blade held in her right hand. Trying to come close enough for a strike when some of the stones under her feet shifted.

Jackass was quicker on the take than Edelgard, but it could be forgiven.

“Do you have any, ANY idea how much time and sweat and oil I put into that wreck!? It was just another ruined old-world ship forgotten in some drydock when I found it… batteries rotten away and half the machine parts rusted into a single block of worthless metal and-”

“Oh put a rest to it, you’ve got bigger things to worry abou-URK!”

After all, she really didn’t expect to see Dorothea come to save her and put sharpened blade straight up and through their guards chest, grabbing them around the neck before they fell to silence any more screams, and then planting them on the ground as she shifted the blade from side to side to make sure she’d cut the important components she’d been aiming for.

“Dorothea… what are you doing here?”

“Wait… you know her?”

“I vaguely recollect meeting you before… at Tauranga. Near the fountain.”

Jackass looked from one to the other, a confused expression on her face. “Then what’s with the weird name Dorothy.”

Now it was Edelgard’s turn to be confused, if even more so. “I… you’ve met her as well?”

“I would think so! I built her brain.”

Dorothy rolled her eyes at that, pulling out a keycard from their now dead guard and unlocking the gate which had barred them. “Really Jackie? You’re pulling that one me now… and I don’t really think following standard android assembly instructions counts as building anything.”

“Then how do you explain your natural talents?”

“Fortuitous chance and the blessings of heaven.”

“Ugh, this is not like those old-world plays you obsessed over Dorothy.”

“They’re called ‘operas’ Jackie, and if you had half the attention for them that you paid for that awful music or those films you like so much…”

“Don’t insult my taste in human entertainment. Or did you forget who snuck you into the ruins of the Sydney Opera house so you could ‘play’ pretend that one time.”

This was insane.

Before everything had been alien, only oddly familiar because of how natural it felt despite that or how she had been able to make connections to her prior memories. But this was an interloper from those memories, walking and talking and just as much flesh and-

Well, not really ‘flesh and blood’, but clearly just as real as herself in this world.

 _“How… why would Dorothea be here?”_ She was certainly close to the other woman, and it was no less strange than the rest of this dream… the earlier memory around the fountain (which now rushed back with a clarity that felt once again too real to have come from a mere dream) had been odd enough. But this?

What was going on here?

“Why are you here anyway?”

“Well, when you missed our rendezvous for supplies we got worried. Bernie and I went looking and found those goons crawling over your ship.”

“Wait, Bernedette? She’s here too?”

Jackass looked at her oddly and then shook her head. “What is with you and getting names wrong? Anyway Dorothy, where is the shy sniper anyhow? Hiding in a crawlspace again?”

“Please she’s much better now… most of the time,” Dorothy said. “Anyway, she’s back at the entrance above this little battle arena they set up. Turns out you getting captured was to our benefit too…”

They came around another passage, finding a row of cells like the ones Jackass and her had been trapped in. And filled with machines.

Some large, bulky, restrained by strange shackles and technological implements. Others though…”

“Androids? No… no more. Please…”

“Hush, don’t you worry, we’ll get you out of here and back to that convoy soon enough.”

The tiny machine lifeform moved forward from where it had been huddled in the back of the cell, eyes blinking on and off as it came closer. In mannerisms and behavior it seemed no threat, no warrior… almost like a child?

“They… they can talk like that?”

“Sure, though that doesn’t really explain what you're doing here Dorothy,” Jackass said, eyeing the machine suspiciously. “Even at the best of times having trade with the peaceful rejects can get you in trouble.”

“Not if no one finds out Jackie,” Dorothy said rising up and looking away from the trapped machine. Frowning as she realized that she’d need the master key to open these cells. “Besides, this job is entirely legit. The contract just isn’t the… normal client.”

“And now you're doing mercenary work for offshoot machine societies?”

“You have to play every side if you want to win the game,” Dorothy said with a wink. Walking past the cells and towards the main door before them. Turning as she came to it to say, “That is what you taught me back then.”

The door opened slowly, taking the strength of all three androids even after the lock disengaged to make enough space for them to come in. Revealing the sandy inner courtyard of the arena that Dorothy had mentioned. Bits of scrap and metal, a twisted and burned skull half buried in those sands… 

A charnel house for her kind, given the wagon at the far corner, piled with corpses both machine and other.

“These monsters must pay,” Edelgard said, the words coming out as a low growl. Fists clenched tight and stepping forward.

Just as the lights above flashed on.

“Well, I didn’t think you’d be so eager to die…”

_“Oh no. Where is he? I can’t see him in this-”_

Her thoughts and her search came to a stop as the door behind them opened further, now pulled fully aside by the engines that had stalled it before. And further gates behind that opening as well. Some of the cells containing machine lifeforms stuttering open, their prisoners stepping out.

And turning towards them with flashing red optics.

“You wouldn’t have any other weapons on you Dorothy?”

“Just a side arm but against armor like this…”

“Great,” Jackass said as she stepped back, looking around the room for anything she could use. And her eyes alighting on the wagon of bodies behind them. “Alright this is going to be a rush job, but do you think you two can keep these guys occupied for a bit?”

“What are you thinking Jackie? We can sneak around them easily enough, it’s not like these half-lobotomized and collared ones will be that smart.”

“What good would that do?” Edelgard said, stepping forward and eyeing up her opponents. Three machines at the moment, two humanoid and unarmed, but with enough mass and armor on them to be dangerous regardless. And one beastial model, more like a great metallic wolf or chimera of hound and horse. “There’s no exit down those tunnels and if they corner us they can just wait us out or attack at their leisure.”

“She’s right kid, if we retreat we’re done for… unless you think Bernie alone can handle all these guys or rescues coming quick.”

“I… no,” Dorothy said, drawing her blade. “She can’t risk doing anything until we make a distraction and we came here before telling anyone what we found.”

“A poor tactical decision Dorothy,” Edelgard said. “This rushing in could easily have led to your deaths.”

“I couldn’t just leave Jackie to these brutes,” Dorothy said stepping back as their opponents drew closer.

“Yeah, I’m so thankful,” Jackass said as she ran back towards the pile of machine bodies. “Now keep them busy!”

There was little time for conversation in the cacophony of battle that followed. Even unarmed and poorly armored Edelgard was not defenseless. While she rarely focused on unarmed combat, she was both proficient in it and somewhat of a savant when needed. And it was needed now. Though never before had the impact of her fists cratered plate and steel, boring a hole very nearly through the side of the first machine as she ducked its clumsy sweep and struck out.

It was shocking how much stronger she was here…

(If she had this sort of strength before… would she have needed to…)

Her idle thoughts, distractions born of memories departed as the counterblow swept past her face. Her hair flowing like an effervescent shawl as her body twisted under the blow and her next attack tore that very limb clean off. Picking it up as it fell and using it as a makeshift club to pound the machine lifeforms head down, crushing it till blackish oil spilled forth from the cracked and broken frame and it at last went still with a twitch.

The brutality of it shocked her… even if it was merely a machine it died so much like a man…

Dorothy’s foe fell to a more elegant barrage of steel and swift decisive strikes. Her blade better suited for pinpoint accuracy, she took her time to pick at weaknesses known in the machines and hit there and only there. Finally ending it as the machine toppled forward and was impaled straight through the core.

Leaving only one.

Which lunged forward, jaws open and sharpened ridges of rusted razors primed to rend her flesh and body apart.

Edelgard wals ready, sacrificing her red cloak to fill the machine’s mouth and bind it’s jaw back as she pulled it to the side. Or tried to, her own strength now contested by one in equal or even superior quality.

“Dorothy! Strike now!”

Her ally might have been shocked by the brazen strategy she employed, but not so long as she kept from lashing out with her blade a moment later. The cloak soiled with metallic oil as cables were sliced through about the neck, Edelgard wrestling the machine beast to the ground and holding it there until it at last went still.

“You worthless scrap… do you have any idea how long it took us to capture that one?”

“Then come and avenge yourself you honorless curs! Or are you all nothing but boasts and threats, unwilling to challenge any that could match you in battle?”

That got a response.

Though whether it was to their fortune or not she couldn’t yet tell. From above she could see several of their captors come out, rifles aimed down into the pit. While their leader stepped into view, a large poleaxe in his hands. He glared down at them, his recent injury still showing the polished steel beneath his skin. With a wave of his arm he signaled for something. And another door opened.

A sound of pounding hooves and then-

“To the side!” Edelgard yelled out, pushing Dorothy to safety as a boar charged past them.

Or something in the appearance of a boar. Matted hair of woven iron, a body of plated steel. A collar like she’d seen on the other machines, bored into its neck and other ‘modifications’ made to the body. It came around and passed near the wall.

Where the leader leaped down and quickly mounted upon it. Grabbing onto reins that connected to the collar and pulling it so as to face them.

“I’ll show you just who you’re dealing with! I’ve lived through two wars and more years than all of you put together… I am Bortis, and I’ve never lost a fight in my arena!”

He charged at them, swinging the axe as he moved. Edelgard looking for an opening…

And rebounding as her fists struck plates too strong to be injured by her hands alone. She rolled to the side, dodging the motions of his axe, but only barely. Dorothy was not so lucky and was forced to block, falling back and prone from the force of the blow and struggling to stand as he came around again.

“Behind me!” she shouted running forward and looking at their foe.

And then looking up.

_“As if this was any sort of honorable duel… he has half-a-dozen men with rifles aimed at us… but if we can make that distraction…”_

“Give me your blade Dorothy,” Edelgard said. Standing firm as the boar and rider turned for another charge. This time she stood her ground, waiting for the moment the blade would descend towards her, Bortis shifting from defensive motions to an overwhelming strike. He didn’t know that that would be a crucial error.

Or hadn’t until she leaped above his swing, brought her blade downwards with unerring accuracy, and cut through flesh and metal.

“Aaargh! You-you’ll pay for this,” he roared out, gazing up at his men with his one remaining eye. “Kill them, kill them all!”

“Jackass, whatever you’re doing it had best happen now!”

“Fine… not going to be my best work,” she said from where she had hidden behind the wagon. Rising up to toss cracked metallic sphere and a pair of smaller orbs wired together by a long metal cable. “Don’t look at it!”

 _“A… a flash grenade?”_ The words came to her, readily enough as she could think of similar weapons from before, if not like the one flung into the air just then. She guarded her vision (and shielded her own body) just as the weapons began to discharge. Thankful that they had aimed for her first and not been aware of how well armored her body had been.

Only for cries of rage and alarm to come out as bright flash filled the arena.

“If you are to strike now, do so!” Edelgard yelled out as loudly as she could, hoping that the earlier comments about another familiar interloper had been true.

The muffled sounds of yet further gunshots not aimed at her proved it to be so.

“Aim for their snipers,” Edelgard yelled out, shaking her head to clear what little disorientation remained and rushing at Bortis. Slicing first the reins to the mechanical beast and then at him as well. He lost his grip and tumbled to the side, but not his hold upon his weapon. Even half-blinded (or perhaps three quarters now) he was still dangerous, and swung the axe in fast and ferocious sweeps. Great arcs that tore through the air and the sand, sweeping it up as a storm about him as he tried in vain to kill the fast moving target that harried him at every turn. Small wounds adding up, red tinted oils weeping from cut after cut…

Till at last she silenced him, blade striking up through his jaw, where there had necessitated he not place armor as even YoRHa had little there. And cutting into critical parts at last. The glimmer of life dying in his one eye, his body only so very much dead weight against Edelgard as she let him drop to the sands. A spreading pool of brackish crimson about his corpse.

She heard the panicked cries of flight from above, what remained of his followers having no loyalty to avenge their master.

And she spotted perched far to one side, half-hidden behind crates and old oil drums, the appearance of another friend and companion that seemed so out of place her…

Even if the way she secured her rifle to her back as she began to descend towards them marked her every bit as natural to this world as this ‘Dorothy’ by her side.

“Oh god, Dorothy… I was so worried back there,” she said as she came down and rushed forward. Pausing only when she drew close and saw that there was someone else next to her friend. “Ah… thanks?”

“It was no problem,” Edelgard said, still not sure what words she should even say at this time. They felt so familiar to her, even if she knew that in this… world (dream) they had never really met until today.

“We make quite the team… oh goodness,” Dorothy said, shaking her head for a moment. “In all the confusion I forgot to even ask your name… you do have one, right?”

“Ah, yes,” she said, “it’s Edelgard.”

They both froze. A flash of… _something_ passing across their faces. Not recollection… not entirely.

“Well then Edelgard, I have to say I am very grateful for your assistance,” Dorothy said. Turning to her side and speaking to Bernie then, “I found the captured machine. Thankfully they hadn’t hurt them yet.”

“Oh… oh, that’s wonderful news!”

The two of them walked off towards the cells from before, leaving Edelgard to wonder...

_“What is going on here?”_

***

The trip back from the ‘supposed salvage’ (more like scrappers she now knew) enclave had been short, thankfully so, and just as she’d been told her ship was where she’d left it.

And while they had been messing around with it, they hadn’t had time to loot it properly or to disassemble anything important.

Like the communications system. Which meant that now Jackass could make a call about something that had been bothering her.

She didn’t have to wait long for a response either…

The YoRHa commander appeared on the screen, the background showing that she had moved somewhere more private for communication. Likely already suspecting based on who had called her that it had to deal with matters that not all of YoRHa needed to be informed or aware of.

“Jackass, what do you have to report? I wasn’t expecting you to call so soon…”

She looked at White, really looked at her. The signs of hidden exhaustion were easy enough to discern, even if most androids wouldn’t know what to look for. Normally this was where they’d have their back and forth over each other’s bad habits, but after today she had a more pertinent topic of conversation.

And not the patience to dance around it.

“So White… when did you decide to build yourself a kid?”

The question filled the space between them, blasting away what responses and thoughts she might otherwise have voiced. Instead White simply stared, her holographic avatar frozen, only moving when the projected screen itself wavered from the minute motions of the display system as the boat rocked from side to side. It took so very long for her to finally voice some response, any response, that Jackass had actually began to wonder if her friend’s (likely once again) atrocious upkeep schedule had come back to bite her and she might quite literally have shut down from shock and she might have to wait a minute or so for everything to boot up again.

“What.”

“I mean she looks kind of like you-”

“All the YoRHa have designs like that and-”

“She’s clearly enamored with you and the whole ‘great purpose’ thing,” Jackass said, doing finger quotes as she spoke, “given how she seems more interested in proving something about you giving her this mission than anything today with just serving humanity or whatever most of them worry about.”

White was growing increasingly frustrated, and Jackass wasn’t giving her any time to come up with a response.

“T-that’s not exactly notable at all Jackass! You’re reading into this-”

“And to top it off I’d swear her personality is like if you decided to do clean drive install of yourself and maybe fiddle around with some of the settings a bit.”

“That is insane and a gross violation of regulations!”

“So it’s just coincidence that this kid just shows up and isn’t on shore on by herself for more than an hour before she’s bossing around a bunch of mercs into acting as her entourage and fighting off a group of smugglers selling contraband machine parts?” 

“Wait, what happened?”

“Oh, just getting into and out of trouble down here… ran into Dorothy and Bernie again. Nice to see they aren’t dead,” Jackass said. Then snapping her fingers as she remembered something else. “Ah damnit, I forgot to tell her that you probably are just as bad at singing now as you were back then when she talked you into-”

“Jackass, get to the point.”

“Well we got captured by some scrappers. Next thing I know our rescue mission turns into an all-out assault on every last one of them and the machines they had captured… and boy is this one kind of bossy…”

“That doesn’t mean I made her to be like me.”

“Yeah, well, just call it my intuition.”

“The very same intuition that got you captured today?” White said as she shook her head and frowned at her longtime friend. “And only rescued thanks to a pair of old trainees?”

“They’re not so green anymore you know. Besides, I know how to handle myself.”

“I worry about you…” White looked at her, eyes staying firm until Jackass couldn’t hold the gaze.

“Yeah… well, we can’t all get some cushy safe job in space.” She felt her old irritation at their distant assignments start to well up. Before dismissing it as an unnecessary distraction from the true purpose of her call. “Whatever. I’m still telling you there’s something weird about this one. She’s too… I dunno? She acts…”

“Older?”

“Yeah.”

White nodded.

There was something weird about 82E… even if she wasn’t sure what it was.


End file.
